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"THIS does only 1d4 damage?!"
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<blockquote data-quote="GuardianLurker" data-source="post: 210760" data-attributes="member: 786"><p>Thanks.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Yeah, it's problematic, I'll admit. It gets a little easier, however, if you divorce the game mechanics from the healing/curing spell titles and affects.</p><p></p><p>What's a light wound? A medium wound? (and so on up the scale) Obviously, there's a degree of relativity in the abstract hit point system, but it's fairly easy to determine that there are absolutes as well. Spraining your ankle is probably a light wound, for instance. While breaking your arm in two so severely that the bones have poked through the skin on your arm is probably a critical wound.</p><p></p><p>Unhappily the abstract hit point system does a very poor job (OK, it doesn't do it at all) of accounting for this kind of damage. About the only way to account for it is either to switch damage systems, or through GM fiat (which requires trusting players). The GM fiat route also means that you'll occasionally have low-level characters (or high-level characters with what would otherwise be light-hp wounds) that require high level healing spells. You can even see traces of this in the Wither spell, which IIRC doesn't do HP damage, but does render a limb useless.</p><p></p><p>The Healing spells, in this system, aren't strictly a "bottom-up" system, but spread their effect over the entire HP "stack".</p><p>Mechanically, translating the DnD spells to the Champions system, here's how I would see them :</p><p>Cure Minor : END repair only</p><p>Cure Light : Stated END repair, and a smaller amount of STUN, maybe a point of BODY in rare cases.</p><p>Cure Medium/Serious/Critical : Stated END repair, maybe half that in STUN, and a quarter in BODY. (Note that for Cure Crit, this works out to be roughly 2d8 body [after accounting for bonuses], which is a hefty healing spell for Hero.)</p><p>Heal, of course, is obvious.</p><p></p><p>What it basically boils down to is that the HP system is (as others have pointed out) a very abstract one. Trying to interject any degree of realism is, unfortuneately, nigh impossible to do within it.</p><p></p><p>This leaves you with few options. You can :</p><p>1) Completely accept HP as it stands, and forget about "realistic" combat. (Not a bad option if you play the standard "heroic" game.)</p><p>2) Impose some realism via GM fiat, and accept that there will be occassional mismatches.</p><p>3) Adapt a different combat system to DnD (The HERO system seems to strike the best detailed results/simple rules balance, I've seen, IMO.)</p><p>4) Switch to another rules system entirely, either towards the more detailed, "realistic", simulationist end (Rolemaster, HERO, etc.), or towards the more abstract, narrative end (WoD, Blue Planet, etc.).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="GuardianLurker, post: 210760, member: 786"] Thanks. Yeah, it's problematic, I'll admit. It gets a little easier, however, if you divorce the game mechanics from the healing/curing spell titles and affects. What's a light wound? A medium wound? (and so on up the scale) Obviously, there's a degree of relativity in the abstract hit point system, but it's fairly easy to determine that there are absolutes as well. Spraining your ankle is probably a light wound, for instance. While breaking your arm in two so severely that the bones have poked through the skin on your arm is probably a critical wound. Unhappily the abstract hit point system does a very poor job (OK, it doesn't do it at all) of accounting for this kind of damage. About the only way to account for it is either to switch damage systems, or through GM fiat (which requires trusting players). The GM fiat route also means that you'll occasionally have low-level characters (or high-level characters with what would otherwise be light-hp wounds) that require high level healing spells. You can even see traces of this in the Wither spell, which IIRC doesn't do HP damage, but does render a limb useless. The Healing spells, in this system, aren't strictly a "bottom-up" system, but spread their effect over the entire HP "stack". Mechanically, translating the DnD spells to the Champions system, here's how I would see them : Cure Minor : END repair only Cure Light : Stated END repair, and a smaller amount of STUN, maybe a point of BODY in rare cases. Cure Medium/Serious/Critical : Stated END repair, maybe half that in STUN, and a quarter in BODY. (Note that for Cure Crit, this works out to be roughly 2d8 body [after accounting for bonuses], which is a hefty healing spell for Hero.) Heal, of course, is obvious. What it basically boils down to is that the HP system is (as others have pointed out) a very abstract one. Trying to interject any degree of realism is, unfortuneately, nigh impossible to do within it. This leaves you with few options. You can : 1) Completely accept HP as it stands, and forget about "realistic" combat. (Not a bad option if you play the standard "heroic" game.) 2) Impose some realism via GM fiat, and accept that there will be occassional mismatches. 3) Adapt a different combat system to DnD (The HERO system seems to strike the best detailed results/simple rules balance, I've seen, IMO.) 4) Switch to another rules system entirely, either towards the more detailed, "realistic", simulationist end (Rolemaster, HERO, etc.), or towards the more abstract, narrative end (WoD, Blue Planet, etc.). [/QUOTE]
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